st which
the snow flakes stuck and melted; violets, roses, carnations, lilies of
the valley--somehow vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed
thus unnaturally in the snow. The Park itself was a wonderful stage
winter-piece.

When he returned, the pause of the twilight had ceased, and the tune of
the streets had changed. The snow was falling faster, lights streamed
from the hotels that reared their many stories fearlessly up into the
storm, defying the raging Atlantic winds. A long, black stream of
carriages poured down the avenue, intersected here and there by other
streams, tending horizontally. There were a score of cabs about the
entrance of his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in livery were
running in and out of the awning stretched across the sidewalk, up and
down the red velvet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above,
about, within it all, was the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of
thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every
side of him towered the glaring affirmation of the omnipotence of wealth.

The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a spasm of
realization; the plot of all dramas, the text of all romances, the
nervestuff of all sensations was whirling about him like the snow flakes.
He burnt like a faggot in a tempest.

When Paul came down to dinner, the music of the orchestra floated up the
elevator shaft to greet him. As he stepped into the thronged corridor, he
sank back into one of the chairs against the wall to get his breath. The
lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the bewildering medley of colour--he
had, for a moment, the feeling of not being able to stand it. But only
for a moment; these were his own people, he told himself. He went slowly
about the corridors, through the writing-rooms, smoking-rooms,
reception-rooms, as though he were exploring the chambers of an enchanted
palace, built and peopled for him alone.

When he reached the dining-room he sat down at a table near a window. The
flowers, the white linen, the many-coloured wine glasses, the gay
toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks, the undulating
repetitions of the _Blue Danube_ from the orchestra, all flooded Paul's
dream with bewildering radiance. When the roseate tinge of his champagne
was added--that cold, precious, bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed in
his glass--Paul wondered that there were honest men in the world at all.
This was what all the w